with heavy-heeled
boots. Captain Donnellan ran to the door, and Mr. Prendergast with
slower steps followed him. When it was opened, Owen was to be seen
in the hall, apparently in a state of great excitement; and the
gentleman whom he had lately asked to breakfast,--he was to be seen
also, in a position of unmistakeable discomfort. He was at that
moment proceeding, with the utmost violence, into a large round bed
of bushes, which stood in the middle of the great sweep before the
door of the house, his feet just touching the ground as he went; and
then, having reached his bourne, he penetrated face foremost into the
thicket, and in an instant disappeared. He had been kicked out of the
house. Owen Fitzgerald had taken him by the shoulders, with a run
along the passage and hall, and having reached the door, had applied
the flat of his foot violently to poor Aby's back, and sent him
flying down the stone steps. And now, as Captain Donnellan and Mr.
Prendergast stood looking on, Mr. Mollett junior buried himself
altogether out of sight among the shrubs.

"You have done for that fellow, at any rate, Owen," said Captain
Donnellan, glancing for a moment at Mr. Prendergast. "I should say
that he will never get out of that alive."

"Not if he wait till I pick him out," said Owen, breathing very hard
after his exertion. "An infernal scoundrel! And now, Mr. Prendergast,
if you are ready, sir, I am." It was as much as he could do to finish
these few words with that sang froid which he desired to assume, so
violent was his attempt at breathing after his late exercise.

It was impossible not to conceive the idea that, as one disagreeable
visitor had been disposed of in a somewhat summary fashion, so might
be the other also. Mr. Prendergast did not look like a man who was
in the habit of leaving gentlemen's houses in the manner just now
adopted by Mr. Mollett; but nevertheless, as they had come together,
both unwished for and unwelcome, Captain Donnellan did for a moment
bethink himself whether there might not be more of such fun, if he
remained there on the spot. At any rate, it would not do for him to
go to the hunt while such deeds as these were being done. It might be
that his assistance would be wanted.

Mr. Prendergast smiled, with a saturnine and somewhat bitter
smile--the nearest approach to a laugh in which he was known to
indulge,--for the same notion came also into his head. "He has
disposed of him, and now he is thinkin